In November 2003, France's civil service minister presented the outlines of the government policy on the civil service to trade unions. There will be no pay increase in respect of 2003 and only a 0.5% rise in 2004. The minister also reiterated the government’s wish to take individual merit into account as a factor in civil servants’ career development and pay.
Download article in original language : FR0401102NFR.DOC
In November 2003, France's civil service minister presented the outlines of the government policy on the civil service to trade unions. There will be no pay increase in respect of 2003 and only a 0.5% rise in 2004. The minister also reiterated the government’s wish to take individual merit into account as a factor in civil servants’ career development and pay.
On 27 November 2003, the civil service minister, Jean-Paul Delevoye, hosted a meeting with the civil service trade unions and announced that the government would not be awarding the 5.2 million civil servants in the central government, local government and hospitals branches of the civil service any pay rise for 2003. Only one increase is planned for 2004, namely a 0.5% wage rise as of 1 January 2004. This means that there will be a discrepancy of between 3% and 4%, depending on the prices index used (ie including or excluding tobacco), between civil service pay and the inflation rates recorded in 2003 and forecast for 2004, following several years of wage rises below inflation (FR0105154N) - see the table below. The unions were unanimous in their condemnation, though this has not resulted in any announcement of industrial action.
The minister himself had stated in September 2003 that a wage rise would be granted to civil servants to cover 2003 (FR0310103N), while the budget passed by parliament for 2003 provided funds earmarked for pay increases. The trade unions thus received an unpleasant shock when Mr Delevoye revealed that there would be no pay increase for 2003. The poor state of public finances partially explains the decision, but commentators suggest that it may have been as much political as budget-related, in that after demonstrations held by civil servants over pensions in spring 2003 (FR0306104F), the government felt that it could expect only a weak response in terms of union actions.
| . | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004* |
| Prices (excluding tobacco) | 1.6% | 1.3% | 2.1% | 1.7% | 1.5% |
| Basic pay | 0.5% | 1.2% | 1.3% | 0 | 0.5% |
* Forecast.
Source: Ministry for the Civil Service.
Although the November meeting did not seem a propitious moment, the minister floated some methodological reforms, one of which was to set up an 'observatory on civil service pay', in order to avoid reducing the complex nature of issues related to pay to just changes in the basic salary. Another proposal was to hold an annual conference on pay, broadening the representation of employers to include heads of local authorities indirectly involved by the state in the decisions on pay levels for their own civil servants. Furthermore, the government’s 'flagship' innovation is the inclusion of individual merit as a factor in civil servants’ career development and pay. In theory, a proportion of pay in some ministries, in the form of bonuses, is already subject to such criteria. In reality, these bonuses are based on quite widespread flat-rate schemes allowing little flexibility. The finance minister, Francis Mer, is one of the ministers most supportive of such a change, which he has already implemented for senior civil servants in his own ministry. The Ministry of Justice announced at the end of December 2003 that it is going to introduce an individual merit criterion into the process of determining one element of court officials’ bonuses. The unions are generally opposed to this measure, less because of ideology than because of doubts about its efficacy. Although it is not new, the debate on this issue may give rise to a number of stand-offs over the coming year.
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (2004), No 2003 pay rise for civil servants, article.
